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Matthew Perry’s doctor has ordered him not to practice medicine

Matthew Perry’s doctor has ordered him not to practice medicine

Dr. Matthew Perry ordered not to practice medicine prior to his guilty pleaDr. Matthew Perry ordered not to practice medicine prior to his guilty plea

(FILES) Actor Matthew Perry attends the 2003 TV Land Awards at the Palladium Theater in Hollywood March 2, 2003. (Photo by Chris Delmas / AFP)

Doctor who agreed to plead guilty in ‘Friends’ actor’s overdose death Matthew Perry was ordered Friday by a judge not to practice medicine.

Mark Chavez, 54, who will admit to conspiracy to distribute ketamine as part of a plea deal with authorities, was released on $50,000 bail in a Los Angeles court.

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Chavez is one of five people facing federal charges in the October 2023 tragedy in which Perry, a longtime addict, was found unresponsive in the pool of his luxury Los Angeles home.

Two others caught in the net, an assistant and an acquaintance, have already agreed to plead guilty to their charges.

Another doctor, Salvador Plasencia, allegedly bought ketamine from Chavez and sold it to the desperate star at wildly inflated prices, thinking, “I wonder how much this idiot is going to pay.”

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Jasveen Sangha, the alleged “Queen of Ketamine” who supplied the drug to high-end clients and celebrities, is accused of selling Perry the dose that killed him.

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Both Plasencia and Sangha face a charge of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, as well as a number of other charges, which they have denied.

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Their trials have been set for October and both face lengthy prison terms if convicted.

Chavez, who admitted in his plea agreement that he sold ketamine to Plasencia, including the doses he diverted from his former ketamine clinic, is expected to enter his formal plea in the coming days or weeks.

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Perry played Chandler Bing on the hit TV sitcom from 1994 to 2004 and has been open about his decades-long battles with addiction.

He had been taking ketamine, a controlled drug, as part of supervised therapy.

Doctors and veterinarians use ketamine as an anesthetic, and researchers have explored its use as a treatment for depression.

Underground users take it for its hallucinogenic effects, although it can be addictive and dangerous for people with underlying health problems.

“Friends,” which followed the lives of six New Yorkers navigating adulthood, dating and careers, attracted a global following and made previously unknown actors megastars.

Perry’s role as the sarcastic man-child Chandler brought him fabulous wealth, but hid a dark struggle with addiction to painkillers and alcohol.

In 2018, he suffered a drug-related colon explosion and underwent multiple surgeries.

In his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry described going through rehab dozens of times.


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“I’ve been mostly sober since 2001,” he wrote, “except for about sixty or seventy little crashes.”